Attention start-ups, owners, and heads of new and growing businesses.

Is your organization a victim of Randomertizing and Peersurizing,
the great marketing trap that could be affecting your growth and profitability?

“We need to get more business. Let’s quickly do some marketing so people know about us. Let’s do a little advertising, print few brochures, and put everything on social media. Say everything in detail. Get someone to do some designs fast and sign up whoever is offering us the lowest cost of display. In two days, we should tell the market what we offer… … (and so on).”

Sounds familiar? The truth is that many businesses approach their marketing this way. We call this approach, “Randomertizing,” which is, “random advertising and marketing, trying to say everything to everyone wherever possible in the shortest time.”

While this kind of marketing can give you some business in the short term, it may not sustain in the long term. Today, customers are being reached out to in many different ways and have plenty of choices available to them. You simply cannot expect them to buy by telling them how great you are (because you believe so), or advertise on a platform you think is best (because you like it), or assume your message is just what they want to hear (because it sounds great to you).

Therefore, it is important to understand your customers and reach out to them in a manner that can lead them to buy. You have to be seen where they are looking, tell them what they want to know, and give them reasons to trust you enough to buy from you.

If you are a new and growing business, you can get better results from your marketing by building a system to communicate with your customers in a manner that can lead them to buy. By following a marketing system:

✔ You will be able to create a unique positioning in the marketplace so customers always think
of you first for that specific product or service.✔ Your messages will be relevant and compelling to attract the attention of those whom you
want the most.✔ Traffic to your website will increase, giving you more leads you can pursue for sales.✔ You can cut adverting and marketing costs, while getting a higher return on spends.✔ Your team will have greater marketing and communication know how to get better results
for their efforts.

There are many pieces that make up your marketing. Some may be missing completely and some may need to be optimized. Eventually you have to gather them all together into an efficient system that is ideal for the size and nature of your business. If you are doing your own marketing and finding yourself struggling to get better results from your efforts, here are five important pieces you must have inside the marketing system to help you grow your business:

Strategy
This is the overall approach to communicate with your audience. This includes your positioning, customer profile, platform of communication etc.

Plans
A step-by-step plan of action to communicate with your market based on your strategy.

Messages
This is the heart of your marketing but often does not get the importance it deserves. (Business owners love to talk about their products and services from their own point of view. They also try to say as many things as they can to everyone at the same time. This is the “Randomertizing Trap” talked about earlier.)

People
Align your people to your plans so everyone has a clear idea of their role, responsibility, and what’s being communicated. If you are tempted to make your own sales people become marketers overnight, read this. Marketers must also have a good sense of communications. If you need to help them improve in this area, go here.

Processes
Your marketing system is a series of processes to ensure that you have an efficient marketing operation. Document how each of your marketing pieces should work and will be monitored. When you do this, you will be able to take measures to improve things rapidly while saving time and money.

When building your system, always keep your business objectives in mind so you don’t end up doing things that divert you from your goals. As with “Randomertizing,” another trap you should watch out for is “Peersurizing,” which is, “Marketing your business by blindly trying to copy your peers, and trying a bunch of vague suggestions from friends, relatives and colleagues that have zero relevance to your business.”

There is nothing wrong in observing what others do or taking advise from people. But the advice must be relevant for your business. What other businesses do and works for them, does not mean the same will work for you. Their messages and budgets are suited for their business. Your messages and budget must be suited for your business. They may have taken years to reach where they are, and what they are doing today may not be what they started out with. Likewise, you may have to go through a long process of realizing what is best for you.

A free workbook to help you build a Structured Marketing System for your business is available here.